DRAM Prices About To Jump? SK Hynix Plant in China Catches Fire

Posted by Nathan Kirsch| Wed, Sep 04, 2013 - 11:58 AM

A massive fire broke out Wednesday at a factory in Wuxi, China that is owned by South Korean memory giant SK Hynix and it could send flash memory and dynamic random-access memory (DRAM) prices soaring. The fire was severe and has forced SK Hynix to suspend all operations at the facility. Hynix is the world’s second largest memory manufacturer. SK Hynix had 30 percent of the DRAM market in the second quarter and the Chinese plant that caught fire is said to produce around 40 percent of the brands total DRAM output. That is bad news for mobile phones and personal computers that use this type of memory.

The Hynix factory fire

DRAM chip prices have nearly doubled in the first six months of this year due to tight supply, so this is only going to make things worse. What caused the fire? The fire started at around 3:50pm local time while a crew was installing chip manufacturing equipment. It was extinguished by 5:20pm, but there were minor injuries. If you were thinking about buying new memory for one of your devices, you might want to!